Developing Regional-Scale Stressor-Response Models for Use in Environmental
Decision-making

Synopsis of Program:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its
Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications
for research into the development of regional-scale stressor-response
models. The goal of this research solicitation is to develop
improved models for use by ecosystem managers to address regional
environmental problems. Models proposed for development under this
RFA will address interactions among at least one of the following
suites of stressors: 1) those associated with the listed impairments
in the current Clean Water Act 303(d) listing process; that is,
suspended and embedded sediments, nutrients, pathogens, 2) those
influenced by climate change (e.g., flow variability, thermal regimes,
UVB), 3) changes in land use patterns affecting regional habitat,
and 4) the introduction of exotic species. The modeling endpoints
will reflect variables of concern for aquatic ecosystems.
These concerns include freshwater and coastal fish and shellfish
populations, as well as ecosystem services (e.g., biodiversity,
production, life-support function).

Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and
state or local governments are eligible to apply for assistance
under this program.

Award Information:

Anticipated Type of Award: Grant
Estimated Number of Awards: 5-7
Anticipated Funding Amount: Approximately $4 million
Potential Funding per Grant per Year: Up to $250,000 per year for
up to 3 years ($750,000 total, including direct and indirect costs).
Applications that exceed $750,000 will not be considered.

Sorting Code(s):

The sorting code for applications submitted in response to this
solicitation is 2002-STAR-M-1.

Deadline/Target Dates:

Letter of Intent Due Date(s): None
Application Due Date(s): July 17, 2002

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its
Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications
for research into the development of regional-scale stressor-response
models for use in environmental decision-making. The Agency's
goal for protecting ecosystems is to restore and maintain the "health,"
biological diversity, and sustainability of ecosystems while supporting
sustainable economies and communities. While a consensus exists
in the environmental community on the need for integrated ecosystem
management, our ability to implement integrated ecosystem management
is limited by inadequate understanding of the interaction of multiple
anthropogenic stressors with biological responses within regional
watershed ecosystems. By regional scale ecosystems we mean areas
such as the Chesapeake Bay or the Willamette River basin. This RFA
seeks the development of regional-scale models that can be used
to simulate and investigate the interactions of multiple stressors
on the health of aquatic ecosystems.

Managers of large, multi-jurisdictional watersheds (8-digit HUC
scale and above) need to be able to identify and monitor anthropogenic
stressors and understand their impact on the watershed in order
to develop appropriate management strategies for ecosystem scales
ranging from headwaters to large receiving bodies. Their management
challenges are compounded by the uncertainty imposed by the interaction
of climate change, as well as changing socioeconomic drivers.
Unfortunately, limitations on our understanding have resulted in
the development of independent water quality standards that narrowly
focus on single stressor-response relationships at a single scale
of analysis (http://www.epa.gov/bioindicators/html/bioltech.html
and http://www.epa.gov/owow/monitoring/calm.html).
Similarly, guidance for predicting and allocating reductions in
pollutant loadings needed to mitigate water quality impairments
has historically focused on single water bodies or reaches and on
single pollutants, even though management actions often need to
be applied at a watershed scale and often must necessarily involve
multiple pollutants (NRC 2001).

Modeling has long been used as a tool to examine and predict relationships
among variables in complex systems. With respect to models used
for Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analysis, the need for
improved stressor-response models was identified by the National
Research Council (NRC) in its report, Assessing the TMDL Approach
to Water Quality Management (2001). The report states that the development
of models that link anthropogenic stressors (such as chemical pollutants,
changes in land use, or hydrologic alterations) to biological responses
is a significant challenge to the use of biocriteria and for the
TMDL program. A TMDL refers to the total maximum daily load
of a pollutant that, upon reaching a water body, results in a pollutant
concentration in the water body that does not exceed a water quality
standard. The report also suggests that models that are designed
to protect or restore water quality and designated use should ideally
include the five major environmental stressors identified by Karr
(1990) and the NRC (1992). These stressors are: alterations
in physical habitat, modifications in the seasonal flow of
water, changes in the food base of the system, changes in the interactions
within the stream biota, and release of contaminants.
The NRC notes that applicable models should: a) focus on the water
quality standard so that the model can quantitatively link management
options to response variables, b) be consistent with scientific
theory, c) report uncertainty, d) be appropriate to complexity of
the situation, e) be consistent with the amount of available data,
f) give results that are credible to stakeholders, and g) be flexible
to allow for updates and improvements.

This RFA seeks proposals for the development of regional scale
models that can be used to investigate, simulate, and predict interactions
of multiple stressors on the health of aquatic ecosystems.
However, such regional-scale models will still require consideration
of stressor interactions at scales immediately above and below this
level, since coarser-scale attributes can influence responses at
finer scales (Allen and Starr,1982), and because managers typically
must aggregate and/or extrapolate monitoring data collected at small
watershed scales up to the regional level. Thus, tools are needed
to interpret decisions made on individual watersheds within
their regional context. Management issues relevant at the
regional scale may include: assuring that sufficient habitat or
breeding populations exist over a region to ensure sustainability
of populations and ecosystems, managing wetlands on a regional basis
rather than wetland by wetland, the introduction of exotic species,
the interactions of climate change and climate variability with
land use and UVB, and protecting and restoring our nations waterbodies
on a broader scale than individual stream segments or small watersheds.

SCOPE OF RESEARCH

The goal of this research solicitation is to develop improved models
for use by ecosystem managers to address regional environmental
problems. A variety of modeling approaches can be proposed, from
fully distributed physically based models to empirically based statistical
models based on landscape or other biophysical characteristics.
All proposals, however, must describe: 1) how the model will effectively
link multiple environmental stressors to biological responses, 2)
how the uncertainties in the model predictions will be defined and
quantified, and 3) how the model performance will be tested and
validated.

Models proposed for development under this RFA will address interactions
among at least one of the following suites of stressors: 1)
those associated with the listed impairments in the current Clean
Water Act 303(d) listing process; that is, suspended and embedded
sediments, nutrients, pathogens, 2) those influenced by climate
change (flow variability, thermal regimes, UVB), 3) changes in land
use patterns affecting regional habitat, and 4) the introduction
of exotic species. The modeling endpoints will reflect variables
of concern for aquatic ecosystems. These concerns include
freshwater and coastal fish and shellfish populations, as well as
ecosystem services (e.g., biodiversity, production, life-support
function).

The stressor-response models should be designed to facilitate rigorous
investigation of the following issues/questions:

Are there significant interactions among multiple stressor
effects or are the effects of common stressors, (e.g., suspended
sediments, nutrients, pathogens, and altered habitat) additive?

Are there ranges of stressor concentrations at which significant
interactions are expected to occur as different factors become
limiting in a system? (For example, suspended sediments
at high concentrations could mask the effect of eutrophication
in an estuary, or a hydrologic regime characterized by frequent
spates could prevent the accumulation of periphyton in a nutrient-rich
system.)

Are the effects of common stressors additive along the headwater
to estuary continuum or do different factors limit fish and shellfish
populations within different aquatic resource classes and at different
scales?

How might environmental change threaten ecosystem service integrity?
What are the potential thresholds and breakpoints of ecosystem
response to environmental change?

What is the uncertainty in the model predictions? How
can model results be extrapolated from one place to another and
from one timeframe to another? What are the geographical
limits of the model?

Are data available to estimate the required model parameters?
Are data available to test the models predictions? How
can the problem of limited data be dealt with? How can information
be extrapolated across scales given data at different spatial
and temporal levels of data resolution? For example, detailed
time series data might be available for a limited number of targeted
sites in a region within a matrix of probability-based samples
used to characterize regional condition.

How will the model be tested and validated?

OTHER GUIDANCE

The parameterization and testing of regional-scale modeling methods
tends to rely heavily on data derived from statistical sampling,
remote sensing, and spatial analyses. Proposals must address
the data requirements, including the statistical basis for evaluating
the quality and representativeness of the model input data, and
for conducting spatial and statistical analyses of input data and
model results.

The use of model results by private and government watershed managers
is complicated by the existence of multiple political and environmental
jurisdictions within a large watershed basin. Proposals must
explicitly identify how the simulation results of the proposed model
might be used by watershed management agencies to address practical
management issues identified in the Background section. The
Agency especially seeks proposals that can explicitly describe how
insights provided by the model on stressor interactions at multiple
scales might be used to inform watershed managers on decisions regarding
existing or anticipated watershed management issues. Proposals
that demonstrate potential collaboration with watershed management
agencies are especially desired.

Karr, J. R. 1990. Bioassessment and Non-Point Source
Pollution: An Overview. Pages 4-1 to 4-18 in Second National Symposium
on Water Quality Assessment. Washington, DC: EPA Office of Water.

National Research Council (NRC). 1992. Restoration
of Aquatic Ecosystems. Washington, DC:National Academy Press.

National Research Council (NRC), 2001, Assessing
the TMDL Approach to Water Quality Management, National Academy
Press, Washington, D.C.

FUNDING

It is anticipated that a total of approximately $4.0 million will
be awarded., depending on the availability of funds. Budgets of
up to $250,000 per year for up to 3 years ($750,000 total, including
direct and indirect costs) will be considered. 5 to 7 awards
are expected to be made. Applications that exceed $750,000 will
not be considered.

ELIGIBILITY

Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and
state or local governments, are eligible under all existing authorizations.
Profit-making firms are not eligible to receive grants from EPA
under this program. Federal agencies and national laboratories
funded by federal agencies (Federally-funded Research and Development
Centers, FFRDCs) may not apply.

Federal employees are not eligible to serve in a principal leadership
role on a grant. FFRDC employees may cooperate or collaborate with
eligible applicants within the limits imposed by applicable legislation
and regulations. They may participate in planning, conducting,
and analyzing the research directed by the principal investigator,
but may not direct projects on behalf of the applicant organization
or principal investigator. The principal investigator's institution
may provide funds through its grant from EPA to a FFRDC for research
personnel, supplies, equipment, and other expenses directly related
to the research. However, salaries for permanent FFRDC employees
may not be provided through this mechanism.

Federal employees may not receive salaries or in other ways augment
their agency's appropriations through grants made by this program.
However, federal employees may interact with grantees so long as
their involvement is not essential to achieving the basic goals
of the grant.1 The principal investigators institution
may also enter into an agreement with a federal agency to purchase
or utilize unique supplies or services unavailable in the private
sector. Examples are purchase of satellite data, census data tapes,
chemical reference standards, analyses, or use of instrumentation
or other facilities not available elsewhere, etc. A written
justification for federal involvement must be included in the application,
along with an assurance from the federal agency involved which commits
it to supply the specified service.

1EPA encourages interaction between
its own laboratory scientists and grant principal investigators
for the sole purpose of exchanging information in research areas
of common interest that may add value to their respective research
activities. However, this interaction must be incidental to achieving
the goals of the research under a grant. Interaction that is incidental
is not reflected in a research proposal and involves no resource
commitments.

Potential applicants who are uncertain of their eligibility should
contact Jack Puzak in NCER, phone (202) 564-6825, email: puzak.jack@epa.gov.

STANDARD
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

A set of special instructions on how applicants should apply for
an NCER grant is found on the NCER web site, http://www.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/forms/downlf.html,
Standard Instructions for Submitting a STAR Application. The necessary
forms for submitting an application will be found on this web site.

Sorting Codes

The need for a sorting code to be used in the application and for
mailing is described in the Standard Instructions for Submitting
a STAR Application. The sorting code for applications submitted
in response to this solicitation is 2002-STAR- M-1

The deadlines for receipt of the applications by NCER are no
later than 4:00 p.m. ET, July 17, 2002.

CONTACTS
Further information, if needed, may be obtained from the EPA officials
indicated below. Email inquiries are preferred.